“You killed Elssandra. She was so afraid. She was running from you, desperate to escape, and you hunted her down and killed her.” A sob catches in her throat.
“No,” I whisper. “No.”
She gives me a hesitant, wary look. “What do you mean?”
“I didn’t kill her,” I say slowly, “though I might as well have. It’s my fault she died.”
Helena blinks rapidly, and some of the tension leaves her body.
Please, she says down the tether.Please show me what happened. I need to know.
I stare at her, praying she won’t despise me when she learns the truth. Praying she’ll understand. I have no choice. I must tell her. I must show her. She deserves to know.
Before I begin, I send her a wave of affection, wanting her to understand the devotion that still brims in my heart, the tenderness that’s just for her, and she gasps as her eyes widen. A flicker of hope brightens inside her, and I pray it will be enough, enough to see us safely through this uncharted darkness.
Very well, darling human, I say down the bond, even though I now know she’s not fully human. She possesses fae blood, a small amount of it, and her soul is that of a Winter Court fae.
Knowing that her legs are trembling and she’s struggling to remain standing, I guide her to a fallen tree and help her sit down. I join her and draw her into my arms. My wings are still out, and I tuck them around her, the urge to protect her so overwhelming, my chest feels as though it might burst from the pain of it.
I show her. I lean my forehead to hers, and I send her a series of images.
I let her watch me chase Elssandra through the icy mountains as rage and betrayal consume me. I let her watch as Elssandra tries to outrun me… only to slip and fall through a crevice in the mountain. She plunges into an icy ravine filled with a hibernating mangga swarm… a swarm that wakes up and devours her before I can save her.
Helena shakes in my arms as I show her the rest. How I cried, filled with sorrow and regret, as I tried to heal Elssandra. How the venom from the mangga swarm ate away at her flesh and even her bones. In the end, I could only save her skull. She was gone. Dead because I had chased her. Dead because I had scared her so much with my anger that she believed she had no choice but to flee.
Helena withdraws slightly from my arms and peers up at me, her visage filled with shock… and compassion. I sense her understanding through the bond, and it brings tears to my eyes. I pray I’m not imagining it. I pray it’s real.
“You didn’t intend to kill her,” she whispers. “You were angry, and you were devastated by her betrayal, but you’d planned to capture her and drag her back to the palace. As your prisoner. In secret. You didn’t want anyone to know what she’ddone, and you didn’t want anyone to know that your father had a son with a fae female who wasn’t his mate.”
“Yes,” I admit as the resurfacing memories cause my chest to tighten further. “I didn’t know what I would do with her, but I knew I could never kill her. I could never really hurt her. She was my mate and I loved her. As for my father and whether he truly sired Resshan… I believe he did. He died a few centuries before I met Elssandra, but I found some letters in his private things that were from Resshan’s mother.”
Oh, Theron. Helena’s voice echoes in my head.I am so sorry.
You have nothing to apologize for, darling human,I say down the bond.
But I betrayed you. I poisoned you. She shakes her head, a dazed look taking over her features.I wish it had never happened. I wish… I wish I was still alive as Elssandra. I wish her family had never plotted against you and convinced her to join their cause. I wish none of this had ever happened. We could’ve spent the last few hundred years together. Happy… and in love.
I lift her and settle her in my lap, needing to have her closer. I hold her tightly to my chest and place a kiss atop her head, then draw back to peer into her eyes.
“We cannot change the past, darling human.”
“I’m not fully human,” she says, a teasing hint to her voice that brings me hope, hope that perhaps we can move past the darkness and find one another again.
In this life.
“You’re still my darling, human or otherwise,” I eventually say, “and I love you, Helena. Truly and deeply. In the depths of my icy winter soul,I love you. You are my mate, and I am yours.”
Tears glimmer in her eyes. “I love you too, Theron. But… where do we go from here?”
Slowly, I reach to cup her face, ready to catch any tears that might fall. We stare at one another as the breeze sweeps through the trees, ruffling her long, black hair and my feathered wings. A gentle wave of snow flurries falls from the sky.
Her question hangs in the air between us. Where do we go from here?
At last, the answer comes to me.
“We begin again,” I say carefully, “as two souls given one final chance to choose differently. Together.”
A smile graces her lips, and I feel her soften in my arms, the last of her fear and sorrow fading away to make room for the second chance we both so desperately want.
